Andrew Johnson

Thursday

Mar 16, 2017 at 12:12 PMMar 16, 2017 at 12:12 PM

Background/Early Life• Andrew Johnson was born and grew up in North Carolina without formal schooling. When he was 17 he moved to Tennessee where he set up a tailor shop, which is what he apprenticed as years earlier, and married Eliza McCardle, who taught him to read and write.• After serving as a town alderman and a mayor Johnson won seats in the state legislature and state senate, then served in the United States House of Representatives and became governor of Tennessee.• Johnson returned to Washington as a United States Senator opposed to secession. When Tennessee broke from the Union Johnson was the only Southern Senator to not resign his seat. He aligned with Abraham Lincoln, which led to his selection as Lincoln’s vice presidential candidate for his second term in office. How he defined the office• Johnson’s clashes with Congress led to him being the first president to be impeached – brought to trial before the Senate. The Senate fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict Johnson.• The impeachment process, and the lack of a conviction, set a precedent that Congress should not be able to remove a president from office simply because they disagreed.• It also led to a shift in the balance of government, with Congress maintaining more power than the president, a shift that lasted until the 1900s.• Although President Johnson was not removed from office, the damage was done. He had no chance at being re-elected after his impeachment.Successes and failures• With President Lincoln’s assassination coming so soon after the end of the Civil War, the task of Reconstruction fell to President Johnson. He implemented his interpretation of President Lincoln’s vision. The first step was having the defeated states draft new constitutions outlawing slavery and renouncing secession under provisional governors he appointed. The states would not be allowed representation in Congress until they did this.• President Johnson did not approve laws granting civil rights to African-Americans, leading Congress to approve the 14th Amendment, which defined citizenship and authorized the federal government to defend citizens’ rights.• Although domestic issues dominated Johnson’s presidency, his secretary of state, William Seward, did negotiate the sale of the land that would become Alaska to the United States.• Johnson served a short time as senator after his presidency, and died shortly after taking office in 1875.

notable quote• “I feel incompetent to perform duties ... which have been so unexpectedly thrown upon me.”